Four Seasons celebrates 35 years of growth, leadership

Published: Thursday, May 8, 2014 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at 7:03 p.m.

Since its beginning inside Jean Moulthrop Hoogstra’s home, Four Seasons Compassion for Life has provided patient-centered hospice care for the community.

This year instead of a black-tie fundraiser, Four Seasons will hold a 35th Birthday Bash Saturday in Flat Rock, complete with music by Kat Williams, local craft beverages and cuisine, and a piņata raffle.

Founded and incorporated in 1979 by a group of volunteers, Four Seasons was first known as Hospice of Henderson County.

“A group of people got together and were concerned about the treatment of people at the end of life and the need to do it differently than were doing it in this country,” board Chairman Dot Moyer said. “A number of places were responding to that movement across the country, so it started as a group of volunteers that got together, and started bringing comfort care to people when they were dying, working with doctors and nurses.”

In 2003, Four Seasons saw roughly 30 patients a day for hospice care and today sees closer to 300 a day.

“It’s been a dramatic increase to the point that for the past 10 years, we’ve had the highest death service ratio, which is the percentage of people in the area who die who have been served by our hospice,” Moyer said. “We have had the highest death service ratio for Western North Carolina for 10 straight years.”

Four Seasons now serves seven counties in Western North Carolina. Moyer said Four Seasons’ mission is to make sure that anybody who needs compassionate end of life care is served by the organization.

“To do that we employ an extensive patient team, which includes medical professionals, social workers, chaplains, bereavement counsellors, alternative therapists and other specialties as needed,” Moyer said. “We also conduct research, run a Center for Excellence which trains medical professionals from around the country and give back through the Zambia Partnership, which provides support and training to medical staff in Zambia.”

Four Seasons consults with other hospices across the country and has been awarded the Circle of Life Award by the American Hospital Association as the top hospice in the nation.

“For a little area like Henderson County, we are very lucky to have this fantastic hospice,” Moyer said. “We have an incredible group of doctors; we were one of the first hospices in the country to have our own staff doctors.”

One of Four Seasons’ fast-growing services is palliative care, which Moyer said is offered to anyone with a life-limiting illness and includes compenents such as case management, pain control and a general team approach to the patient’s care.

“We probably have around 800 patients a day and of those, 550 might be palliative care patients, and these are patients that have debilitating illnesses and usually they’ve got a number of different illnesses,” Moyer said.

She added that palliative care teams specialize in dealing with patients with multiple chronic illnesses.

“Moving into palliative care, we were also one of the first (providers of hospice care) to go into that and are considered a national leader in palliative care,” Moyer said. “In fact, Dr. Janet Bull just got recognized as one of the top 30 visionaries in palliative care along with, believe it or not, Mother Teresa and Ronald Regan.”